Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New? • Hacker News Board

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#151

Post by grecy » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:28 AM UTC

SlumptonFidget wrote: post #149

grecy wrote: post #66

American society functions on bribery, and anyone that thinks otherwise simply has their eyes closed. "Contributing" to a congressman is literally giving them money so they make decisions favorable to you. That is identical to me giving a policeman $50 to look the other way. Unlimited campaign contributions is just newspeak for "legal bribery".

Your "legal bribery" is another's first amendment right to support someone else's candidacy. Or so I was once told.

Of course. In America money is speech, another indicator that the entire society is built around the idea that money can get you what you want.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#152

Post by candybar » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:34 AM UTC

mrep wrote: post #143

adamnemecek wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a very effective form of weeding out people since a portion of each class is forced to retake it This seems really pointless.

I don't know. Purdue is much easier to get into then IVY league schools and yet ranks better in CS than 3/8 of the IVY league, tied with one, and really isn't far below than the other 4 according to US News [0]. Based on my assumption that Purdue is highly rated because people who graduate were the top X% of students and others were weeded out or re-took classes to learn the material better, would you rather have the…

This is a graduate school ranking based on a survey and fairly meaningless due to how it's done:

Specialty rankings of doctoral science programs are based solely on nominations by department heads and directors of graduate studies at peer schools. These respondents ranked up to 10 programs in each area. Those with the most votes appear in the rankings tables.

This biases the result towards top regional schools, whose peers rate them highly over well-known schools that are otherwise great, but have weaker CS programs than its best peers. Either way, this has no real relevance in terms of comparing the quality of those who complete their undergraduate programs. The selection effect dominates all other factors here and almost no school has separate admissions for computer science (not aware of any in fact other than CMU) which means to the extent most people rank them, it is roughly in order of the overall prestige of the undergraduate program in general. I mean University of Wisconsin - Madison is a great school, but on average, you won't find their graduates to be quite as good as Harvard or Yale grads.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#153

Post by candybar » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:41 AM UTC

failrate wrote: post #92

adamnemecek wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As of 2013, the median grade at Harvard was an A-. What do you conclude from this? > Anecdotally, I have heard of places that refuse to hire Harvard grads for this reason. That does sound anecdotal.

If everyone is receiving an A, that indicates that everyone receives As regardless of merit.

If the median is A-, that means more than half the students are not getting an A. If we accept that Harvard does have some of the best students, well at least best at getting good grades, since that is at least partially how they get in, why shouldn't they have better grades on average? To do otherwise would seem unfair to the students, since people are often judged on grades by people who don't have any perspective as to what a given grade means at a given institution. It would not be surprising if getting an A at Harvard is still substantially harder on an absolute basis than getting an A at a much lesser school that has a much lower average.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#154

Post by pmart123 » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 4:45 AM UTC

40acres wrote: post #120

jjoonathan wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're building a picture in your head, you can check it against actual numbers here: https://features.thecrimson.com/2015/freshman-survey/makeup/

Thanks for the numbers. This confirms some suspicions but also refutes others: not a lot of legacy kids at Harvard, but their parents are still largely wealthy and mostly White / Asian.

I think a greater amount of legacy candidates typically apply early acceptance, which throws off the pure percentages. Presumably, candidates with large donor backing apply early, but schools typically give these applicants a bump for the inherent commitment.

I've recently thought another interesting study would be to look at admittance rates for NYC prep schools. I have friends right now paying crazy amounts of money for even pre-school. Part of the argument is the acceptance rates into elite colleges. I recently wondered how many of these kids are going because of large donations, which artificially inflates the stats for prospective parents who plan to get their kids into college on merit.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#155

Post by richardhod » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #57

NavyNuke wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why it stings for poor or working class Asians and non-Jewish Whites...you don't get the affirmative action or legacy leg up...

How do Jews get a leg up from affirmative action and legacies when the application doesn't ask for your religion (any more) and there were quotas in the past to limit the number of Jewish students?

To be fair, whether there is affirmative action or bias or not, characteristic names give a lot away for this religious-ethnic group, as with other groups.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#156

Post by cshimmin » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #73

cshimmin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 65% of students at Yale receive need-based financial aid from the University. Students coming from households making less than $65k don't pay anything at all for tuition/room/board. So clearly some of that endowment money is "trickling down". Source: https://finaid.yale.edu/costs-affordability/affordability

At the university of Whatshisface, tuition is $10^12/semester, and everyone receives $(10^12-10^3)/semester in needs-based financial aid. I assure you that I have a karmatic license to do anything I want - after all, summed across all students I give more than the GDP of many small countries.

Right... From the stats from Yale linked above, the median net cost after financial aid is $12.5k. That's a lot less than I paid to go to a public university.

As for a "license to do anything", it's not clear what exactly you're complaining about here? They get some money through non-merit based admissions, sure, and then use the money to build nice things for students, and to help cover most students' tuitions. The point of this thread is that there's a difference between private schools accepting donations for this purpose, vs. corrupt individuals accepting bribes. The latter case benefits only the unmeritious student and the corrupt individual, and not the university has a whole.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#157

Post by anyfoo » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

mLuby wrote: post #146

anyfoo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get how that can reasonably be considered a better predictor of a successful university degree than previous grades and application tests, without some serious mental gymnastics.

It's not that hard. Assume Richie Rich and Freckles Friendly are innately equally good students. Freckles almost certainly has additional stressors in his life, since he maintains his scholarship(s), works outside of class, frets over his student loans, and has to be careful how he spends what little cash he has. In contrast, Richie has a pretty carefree existence which he likely spends developing relationships with…

> Freckles almost certainly has additional stressors in his life, since he maintains his scholarship(s), works outside of class, frets over his student loans, and has to be careful how he spends what little cash he has.

Right. But that's part of the point, is it not? Those factors were almost a non-issue for me in Germany. Having no tuition, I had to work part-time to pay for rent, food, and recreational activities, but that wasn't nearly stressful or time consuming enough to impact my studies (or even my social life).

As such, "student loans" are also not really a thing in Germany. I did take a loan of a few thousand Euros towards the end of my studies, in order to be able to focus on my degree without a job and still have a roof over my head, but I was able to repay all of it very quickly as soon as I entered the workforce.

Meaning, those disadvantages for non-affluent people at ivy league universities are entirely self-created, and very likely have the net effect of promoting students who are innately worse but financially better off to success.